Scalia skips ‘childish’ presidential speech, gives his own

While six of his colleagues sat front and center for President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday, Justice Antonin G. Scalia was across town addressing the Smithsonian Associates at George Washington University. And he wasn’t exactly sad to be missing the president’s speech.

“It has turned into a childish spectacle, and I don’t think that I want to be there to lend dignity to it,” Scalia said of the president’s annual address, according to USA Today.

But, Scalia said, the timing of his own event was purely coincidental. “The State of the Union is not something I write on my calendar,” Scalia said. “I didn’t set this up tonight just to upstage the president.”